


Another letter

by Ohgress



Series: The Another series [1]
Category: Homeland
Genre: Drabble, F/M, We need more loveletters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6035347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohgress/pseuds/Ohgress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carrie writes a letter too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another letter

**Author's Note:**

> A tiny something I thought up last night. Completely separate from my other stories.

Carrie had tears in her eyes, standing by Peter Quinn’s hospital bed. It didn’t feel right to leave him like this, but Maggie had called and wondered what the hell was happening. Carrie had been away from Frannie almost a month and that didn’t feel right either. The doctors couldn’t give her a clear answer as to when Quinn would wake up. His brain had a lot of healing to do.

He looked so peaceful, like he was only sleeping. She smiled at him and took his hand. Please wake up someday, she thought. I’m waiting for you. Not just here. She brought his hand to her cheek and held it there, just like he had that night. His palm was big enough to cover the whole side of her face and she sighed and closed her eyes. Feeling his still warm hand against her cheek was so comforting and with her eyes closed she could imagine them in another place, another time. A tear slowly rolled down her cheek. She kissed his palm and laid his hand and arm back alongside his body, dried her eyes and then bent down to kiss his temple.

“I promise, I’m waiting for you,” she whispered to him, her lips close to his ear.

Then she stood back and turned around to double-check that her note was in the right place on his bedside table. She wished she would have found an envelope for it, but she hadn’t so a simple folded note with his name on would have to do.

She moved towards to the door, looked at him one last time and walked out of his room.

***

It was the beeping that woke Quinn up. He had heard it for some time, could have been days, could have been minutes, but in the end he got so irritated by it, that he woke up. He had no idea where he was, couldn’t really focus in on his surroundings but after while he realized he was in a hospital. So I’m not dead. That was his first thought. He closed his eyes again.

Sometime later he found a button and after he’d pressed it, a bunch of nurses and doctors came in and started prodding at him, asking him stupid question to which he could barely answer, which was even more annoying. After a while they left him alone to rest and that’s when he saw it. There was a small note on the table to his left with his name on it, written in a style that seemed familiar. His body was weak but he managed to grab the note and open it. With difficulty focusing on the small letters he began to read.

_Dearest Quinn,_

_I wish I was as good at writing letters as you are but you know me._

_I’m so so sorry for everything that has happened to you and I am so deeply sorry that maybe you are reading this alone. I wanted to be here when you wake up but Frannie needed me and I had to go home to her. Just know that I’m thinking of you every day and you really are my beacon of light. Really._

_Love_

_Carrie_

_P.S. See the back for my new cell number._

At first he was confused. He didn’t understand the first sentence. What did she mean “not as good at writing letters”? He’d never written her one, but as he reached the last sentence, the word _beacon_ struck a chord within him. The phrase _a light on the headlands_ popped into his mind and he realized that was his words to her, a long time ago. But that letter was an afterlife letter, she couldn’t have… could she? Maybe he had been that close to death after all, he didn’t know. Perhaps Carrie had received his letter.

He tried to remember what else he’d written then and when he remembered he closed his eyes and swallowed dryly. That had been some letter. Some heavy thoughts, and she knew now, she knew.

He read Carrie’s letter a second time. This time he smiled at it. She had tried her pencil in left upper corner at first and then scribbled her words down with haste. The paper, nothing fancy, just an old note, but seeing the way she had phrased herself with _Dearest_ and _Love_ made him feel all fuzzy inside and it probably wasn’t only the morphine.

Under the post scriptum Carrie had written something more but she had crossed it out with the pencil. He could just barely make out the words “if you” in the beginning. “See the back for my new cell number, if you…” He thought over the meaning. Oh Carrie, not if, when.

A day or two later he borrowed a cell phone from a nurse he managed to persuade, typed in Carrie’s number and wrote in a text message: **I’m here now. /Quinn**

 

Carrie took the next flight to Germany.

 

 


End file.
